FRIENDS meets Jurisfiction
by scribonia
Summary: After Season 10 what happens to the Friends? And what about Joey? Emily, Jurisfiction agent explains. Established pairings stay the same. See AN for explanation of Jurisfiction


AN1: So I should be working on Living Doll but I'm still working out what to do with the candle.

AN2: Some of you will not have heard of the wonderful Jasper Fforde, author of _The Eyre Affair, Lost in a Good Book, The Well of Lost Plots_ and _Something Rotten_ so below is an explanation, as this fic is a sort of cross. JF created a parallel universe in which there is a regulatory system called Jurisfiction _inside_ the world of fiction. The Cheshire Cat (renamed Unitary Authority of Warrington Cat or UA of W Cat for short), mentioned below, has an important role. Characters in books have an existence, similar to that of actors, which is generally confined to the world inside their books. People in the 'real' world are outworlders. JF has not revealed whether Jurisfiction extends to the world of TV scripts – in this fanfic it does.

AN3: Emily is dressed like a well known picture of Helen Baxendale. Sometimes Helen Baxendale does not wear opaque black tight and does show off...

After the end of Season ten 

'Well that's it,' Chandler said, relaxing.

'What happens next?' Monica said, looking around. They were now in the hall. They were supposed to be going for a coffee. Presumably Central Perk and everything still existed even though nothing more was scripted and never would be. After all, between episodes and during the times when each of them was off screen their existence continued in the world of Friends.

'Well we've got a life on reruns and the videos, I suppose. The DVDs are selling well,' Chandler said.

'True,' Monica said, but they didn't know what that would mean for them. Presumably they could go back in the series, perhaps even back past the beginning because each of them had back stories. Only Joey had actually gone to his back story, reporting that it was a nice place to visit but a bit thin. Rachel and Monica had instantly registered interest at this, but what Joey had meant was that it felt less real and that he hadn't liked it. And in each of their back stories there were things they didn't want to return to.

Forward was the big mystery.

'It's different for Joey though,' Ross said, 'He's going to another series.'

'Maybe we'll get to visit,' Rachel said wistfully.

'That'd be great,' Chandler said. Monica nodded.

'Maybe there'll be a spin off for you guys, you're really popular too,' Phoebe said.

'That would be nice,' Rachel said. In a spin off, she might be able to develop her career, enjoy being with Ross, have another baby...

'Not bloody likely,' an English voice cut in. The six turned around to see Emily dressed in a tight leather jacket and mini skirt holding a battered looking script. On the front of the script was written 'Jurisfiction – Script Division,' and at the bottom right hand corner was the name 'Emily Waltham.' As for her clothes, there appeared to be nothing on under the jacket, which was buttoned low. If Emily sat down, the ride up from her skirt would be dangerous. Ross, Chandler and Joey realised their mouths were hanging open and shut them quickly. There was something else about her that bothered Phoebe but she couldn't work out what. Rachel said,

'What are you doing here? You were written out in Series Five in The One With the Ride Along, and your outworlder actress wouldn't come back for Series Ten even though she was asked, so how can you be here?' Nobody really knew how far forward a character could travel in a series in which she'd been written out, but Rachel was all pretty sure it couldn't be five years, although she hadn't been paying much attention when the rules were being read out because she had been too busy thinking about some shoes she'd seen.

'You know that television scripts aren't all that stable,' Emily said. 'They can cope with a lot of improbably events. Take Dallas, where they patched up a huge plot problem by pretending it was all somebody's dream? And this series has holes big enough to drive a truck through.'

'No it doesn't.' Monica said at once. She would have noticed something so untidy.

'All right then, when's your brother's birthday?' Emily challenged.

'It's er March or September,' Monica struggled. She'd work it out, she was sure there had to be a logical explanation as to why she thought it was both March and September.

'Hmm? And how old is he? Help her out Ross?' Emily suggested, lifting an eyebrow.

'I'm er er...' stuttered Ross, frowning.

'Okay you've made your point,' Monica said unwillingly.

'Why do you look so young?' Phoebe asked.

'I didn't get past season five, so I never get older than twenty eight or twenty nine. However old Rachel was then.'

'Why is my age important?' Rachel asked in puzzlement.

'Remember my uncle says to you, "she's about your age"? That's how old I am. But only in seasons four and five.' Seeing Rachel frown she said, 'If you were to move back to seasons one to three or even your backstory you've be younger than me, if that's what's worrying you.' It wasn't.

'Would you mind doing more buttons up,' Rachel said, noticing the men were still being distracted with the gap between the lapel edge and Emily's skin.

'There aren't any more buttons,' Emily said. 'What are you worried about? I believe your characters have had a few flashes here and there.' She adjusted the edge of her jacket in a way that totally failed to distract the men from her chest.

'You never dressed that sexy in your part. Why are you dressed like that now?' Rachel asked, feeling irritated. She was supposed to be the outstanding one.

'My outworlder actress wore this in a photoshoot and I rather liked it. So different to being bundled up like I was in the show. We can wear whatever we like when we're not on script,' Emily said. 'Surely you know that.'

'Yes,' Monica said, 'But there are some rules in Script land and I'm still pretty sure you can't be here, unless you've been written into Joey's new series. Joey looked momentarily hopeful. He was waiting to see if a breast might pop out, despite Emily's assertion and tried to position himself so that he'd get the best view if it did.

'Are you going to be on my show?' he asked.

'Oh no, I'm here because I'm part of what used to be known as Script Continuity and Plot Adjustment or SCAPA.' They all knew about SCAPA – they had all passed its training before being selected for Friends. It was an organisation which regulated the world inside scripts but it was a long time since they'd had anything to do with it. They knew that they were governed by its rules but they didn't think very much about it. The rules were really for the script itself, not for the individuals. They just said their lines.

'Used to be known as?' Ross asked.

'It's been taken over by Jurisfiction.'

'What's that?' Joey asked.

'You never did read many books Joey. Jurisfiction controls textual integrity in books. And now scripts. We are now the Script Division.'

'Snappy name,' Chandler said.

'Well the Unitary Authority of Warrington Cat, whom you would know better as the Cheshire Cat, doesn't have much sympathy for problems with names.' Joey looked puzzled. 'He's from Alice in Wonderland, which is a children's book Joey. Even Rachel would know that.'

'So what's this Cat got to do with it?' Joey asked.

'He runs the library,' Emily said. The others looked blank and she added with emphasis, 'That's a difficult and dangerous job in Jurisfiction. Books are more than collections of paper and ink.'

'But he's a cat,' Chandler said, 'how can he run a library?'

'He's the best libararian they've ever had, although he does say that indexing can be difficult with paws,' Emily said.

'But if Jurisfiction has taken over,' Monica asked, 'Does this mean the rules have changed?' Emily shook her head.

'The rules for scripts haven't changed all that much. It's asking too much to impose logic and consistency on television scripts of shows that last as long as ten years, so we can't use the rules we use for the Novel, but we do what we can.'

'Why did they recruit you?' Monica asked.

'Well I've had some experience with lack of consistency and stupid plot devices,' Emily said, 'and I was actually supposed to come in for a bigger role than the one I ended up with so I was very much underutilised considering my training. I'm an A generic by training but my role was only a B generic one.' The others looked at each other. They weren't used to regarding anyone else as an equal. They didn't understand 'A generic' and 'B generic' but they were pretty sure they were the only 'A generics' in Friends. It was as if Emily could read their minds. 'Actually Phoebe is really only a B generic,' Emily said. 'The matching in script land can be a bit sloppy.'

'B!' Phoebe explained, 'I'm a B? That can't be right.' She knew that many found her character somewhat nothingy but 'B'?

'I wouldn't worry about it,' Emily said, 'Count yourself lucky. You could have been given a 'C' role by mistake.' Phoebe supposed Ursula was a C generic and felt a little better.

'Your actress outworlder actress got pregnant so she was written out of the show, so that's probably why your role wasn't A,' Rachel said. Emily shrugged.

'Well since I was left at a loose end, I was recruited.'

'Listen,' Ross said, 'You said when you got here that we wouldn't be recruited for Joey's series. How do you know?'

'I'm part of Jurisfiction so I know these things.'

'But why not? It would only be natural for us to guest role on his show,' Ross persisted. 'We're part of his background, we're _Friends_.'

'Well for one thing, your outworlder Actors want too much money, and without them, there's no you. That's one of the drawbacks of being in scripts, although of course on daytime soaps it doesn't matter if there's a change of Actor – but they have special dispensation from the rules. In your case, you're stuck. No-one's going to accept a substitute and no-one's going to pay all those acting salaries for a new series – not for all of you. Why spend all that money? You know what happens with sequels usually, they flop.'

'Oh thanks,' Joey said, still studying the opening of Emily's jacket.

'For another, there just wouldn't be any real interest in your stories, especially the Ross and Rachel story,' Emily said.

'Oh that's ridiculous!' Rachel said, 'People love us!'

'Some people do,' Emily said. 'There are other people who are just sick and tired of you and wish you were dead with stakes through your hearts. The whole romantic tension business was more than they could bear. A few years is interesting, but _ten_? Give me a break! You actually lost admirers for that, they got so fed up. And a lot of people thought the way your reunion was slapped together at the end was pretty unconvincing – none of this your fault of course, it's the lines you were given but there you are.

'But the people who love you are the real problem. They've been in agonies – they've waited ten years for you to settle down and they won't stand for any problems whatsoever between you in the future. You should see all the stuff in Fan Fiction land. They'll riot if anything bad happens to you.'

'So we can have a situation where we're perfectly happy,' Ross said. Rachel nodded. That was an easy problem to solve. Did Emily think they were stupid just because she was in Jurisfiction and they weren't?

'That'll rate well,' Emily said sarcastically. Their faces fell. She was right. No tension, no drama, no conflict meant no ratings and no show.

'But what does this mean?' Monica asked, worried about their future. Emily sighed.

'Didn't anyone from SCAPA explain this to you before you started?' They all shook their heads. 'Well Jurisfiction didn't take over too soon!' Emily said in disgust, 'You stay within the confines of your story. You've got a bit of time after the end of the series but basically you've got the series and your back stories to move around in. After the series end, nothing changes – it's a kind of limbo land.' They were looking depressed. They were so used to something new every week. Of course the end of the series had been flagged before but it had never happened and they had come to believe that it never would. 'I don't know what you're complaining about. So many characters don't get beyond the pilot. Hardly anyone lasts ten years,' Emily said.

'What do you mean move around in?' Chandler asked.

'You can go anywhere in time during the show or into your back stories. Personally when I'm not on Jurisfiction duties, I go to Vermont.'

'But that only lasted a little while,' Ross said. 'And you'd then be going forward in the series until you were out, which wasn't nice for you.' An awful thought struck Rachel.

'Do you mean to say that you just keep re looping? Is that what we're going to do?' Go back for another ten years of misunderstandings forever into the future?

'No. You can make your favourite moments last as long as you like. My first weekend in Vermont with the deer eating fruit lasts forever. It's always there when I get back,' Emily said. Rachel noticed that Ross was looking dreamy.

'You can't go there,' Rachel said to him sharply.

'Of course not,' Ross added. Emily just smiled a secret smile that Rachel didn't like, and said,

'Suit yourself. I've stood around chatting for long enough. I've come to take Joey to his new series.'

'He's going?' they all asked.

'He'll be back. He'll always be here, as well as there,' Emily said.

'This doesn't make much sense,' Monica said.

'I wouldn't advise you to try to make sense of it,' Emily said, 'It takes years of training to be a good Jurisfiction agent.'

'So I'm going with you,' Joey said. He was sure a breast was looking ready to pop out. 'Hey you remember when we played spin the bottle?'

'Yes I do and don't get any ideas,' Emily warned, 'You don't want to know where I could take you if you annoyed me. Buffy is not as nice as it looks from the outside, believe me.'

'Oh I don't know,' Joey said longingly.

'Want to be a victim? That's what happens to lost characters who stray into that one,' Emily said, shutting him up. She turned a page on her script and both Emily and Joey disappeared.

The other five looked at each other. Mike walked in and took Phoebe by the hand,

'We've got to go,' he said.

'Go where?' she asked. He whispered to her and she smiled.

'You mean you know about this?'

'Of course. I was told by SCAPA before I came on the show, weren't you?' he asked.

'No, but it doesn't matter, you know what you're doing,' Phoebe said. Hand in hand, Phoebe and Mike disappeared. Chandler looked at Monica.

'Well, I know where I'd like to go,' Chandler said.

'Our new home,' Monica said joyfully.

'You got it,' Chandler said, 'Now how – ' His question disappeared into nothingness as both he, Monica and the twins disappeared, leaving Ross and Rachel alone.

'So what do we do?' Rachel asked. They still didn't know 'how' but it was the 'where' that mattered.

'I don't want to go back to any special moment,' Ross said. 'I just want to stay here with you, knowing all the bad times have passed and can't come back again.' That was good enough for Rachel.


End file.
